Anwar El Sadat

Anwar Sadat was born in Mit Aboul kom , a small village in the Egyptian
governorate of Menofeya in 1918. He had 13 brothers and sisters in a poor
family. His father was a clerk in local the military hospital.

Sadat joined the military school in 1936 and when graduated he was posted to
a distant outpost where he met Gamal Abd El
Nasser and other young officers forming a revolutionary group called The
Free Officers movement destined to overthrow the British rule and free Egypt
from occupation.

Sadat was jailed twice and expelled from the Army for his revolutionary
connected acts. He returned to civilian life and worked in several fields until
he returned to the military life with the help of one of his friends who was
connected with King Farouk at that time.

On July 23rd, 1952 a coup was organized by the Free Officers movement which
led eventually to the end of the British occupation of Egypt in 1956.

Egypt was confronted by major political powers in a changing world trying to
force their influence on the newly born regional power. 1956 Suez war and 1967
Sinai war were the two major events that shaped political life in Egypt for
years to come.

Sadat was elected president of Egypt in 1970 after the sudden death of Nasser
where he faced the influence of hardliners and local super power figures in the
Egyptian government whom he jailed in a movement he named the correction
movement on May 15th, 1971.

On October 6, 1973 the Egyptian army attacked the Israeli forces occupying
Sinai and forced a UN resolution to end the war in terms satisfactory to Egypt
led by Anwar Sadat.

Sadat used this new situation in Sinai to persuade the Israelis to sign a
peace agreement supervised by the Americans in 1979 which led to the withdrawal
of the Israelis from Sinai. For his efforts Sadat won the Nobel prize for
peace.

Sadat's new relationship with the west and his peace treaty generated
considerable domestic opposition, especially among fundamentalist Muslim groups.
October 6, 1981, Sadat died at the hands of fundamentalists assassins during a
military review celebrating the 1973 War.